A World War II soldier's letters bring back the horrors of war .

As a member of the Ninth Infantry Division, it was my cousin Bobby's lot to be tethered to the front line in some of World War II's most fearsome fighting.
Normandy. The Huertgen Forest. The Battle of the Bulge.
He rarely mentioned any of it.
But when he lay in the hospital, dying of cancer in the spring of 2009, he couldn't stop talking. And the morphine made his accounts suspect. It wasn't clear what he'd seen, what he'd dreamed.
When an uncle sent me a box a few months ago stuffed with my cousin's letters from the war, I finally had the opportunity to learn about the events that shaped him, and that helped tear him apart.
At first Bobby wrote home so often his letters didn't bear the date, just the day.
"Thurs," begins an early correspondence to his mother from infantry camp. "The boys thank you for the food. Even C rations would taste good."


Read more: A World War II soldier's letters bring back the horrors of war | Philadelphia Inquirer | 11/11/2010
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Thanks for the post and link. I asked grandpa how he handled life after the war. He said, "back then you didn't go talk to anyone when you had bad dreams. You just got up every morning and did the best you could."

 

appreciated, thanks...

 

With the new War they are telling us that this may happen and are getting us help.